§ COLONEL SYKESsaid, in the absence of his hon. Friend (Mr. Buxton), he would bog to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether his attention has been called to the case of John Croudace and Thomas Allison, who were flogged on Saturday last in the County Prison at Sunderland; and what the names were of the magistrates by whom the same was ordered and superintended?
§ SIR GEORGE GREYreplied, that his attention had been called to this case by a Question which had been put to him the other evening. He assumed then that this punishment had been inflicted by virtue of a sentence passed in conformity with the provisions of an Act passed last Session, which, for the first time, authorized corporal punishment to be inflicted in certain cases, in addition to penal servitude. Since then he had seen the calendar and the list of the convictions, and he found that these two prisoners were convicted of robbery with violence, and were sentenced by Mr. Baron Pigott to terms of penal servitude, and to receive twenty lashes with the cat within one week of the date of their conviction. He 2191 had no doubt that the sentence was carried into effect in strict conformity with the Act of last Session. Very few sentences had been passed under the provisions of that Act, but this was one of them. The magistrates were in no way responsible for the sentence; the only persons bound to be present at the infliction of the punishment being the governor of the gaol and the surgeon.
§ MR. DARBY GRIFFITHsaid, he wished to know whether the cat was made of leather, and not of whipcord?
§ SIR GEORGE GREYsaid, he did not know the difference, or whether the cat of leather or of whipcord was the heavier instrument. The Judge who passed the sentence directed that the punishment should be inflicted with a cat instead of a birch-rod, according to the provisions of the statute.